168 GARDENS OF THE DAL LAKE 



The Nishat Bagh, true to its name, is the 

 gayest of all Mughal gardens. Its twelve ter- 

 races, one for each sign of the zodiac, rise drama- 

 tically higher and higher up the mountain side 

 from the eastern shore of the lake. The stream 

 tears foaming down the carved cascades, foun- 

 tains play in every tank and watercourse, filling 

 the garden with their joyous life and movement. 

 The flower-beds on these sunny terraces blaze 

 with colour roses, lilies, geraniums, asters, 

 gorgeous tall-growing zinnias, and feathery cosmos, 

 pink and white. Beautiful at all times, when 

 autumn lights up the poplars in clear gold 

 and the big chenars burn red against the dark 

 blue rocky background, there are few more 

 brilliant, more breathlessly entrancing sights 

 than this first view of Asaf Khan's Garden of 

 Gladness. 



When Shah Jahan was in Kashmir in 1633, 

 he visited this garden. Its high terraces, and 

 wonderful views of lake and mountain, so delighted 

 him that he at once decided that the Nishat 

 Bagh was altogether too splendid a garden for 

 a subject, even though that subject might happen 

 to be his own prime-minister and father-in-law. 

 He told Asaf Khan on three occasions how much 



